ttom-lands along the flood-plain of Mill
Creek makes it accessible to the railways that enter the city. On
account of low rates of transportation by river-barges, about three
million tons of coal and one million tons of pig-iron and steel billets
are floated to the city to be manufactured into other steel products.
_Indianapolis_ is a great railway centre, where much of the freight
passing between Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg is
exchanged. _Columbus_ (O.) is similarly situated as a railway and
farming centre.

[Illustration: CATTLE AND DAIRY PRODUCTS]

_Louisville_ is a market of the tobacco region, and has probably a
larger business in this industry than any other city in the world.
_Davenport_, _Rock Island_, and _Moline_ form a single commercial
centre, the last-named having the largest establishment for the
manufacture of ploughs in the world. _Dubuque_, _Burlington_, _Quincy_,
and _Muscatine_ are river-ports, all having a considerable trade in the
lumber that is carried down the river.

=The Southern Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coast.=--This region receives a
generous warmth and rainfall. Cotton is its staple product, and nearly
all the industries are connected with the growth, shipment, and
manufacture of the crop and its side products. The cotton, raw or
manufactured, is sold in about every country in the world.

The commercial part of handling the cotton-crop begins within a very
few weeks from the time of the first picking. The baled cotton is hauled
by team from the plantation to the nearest market-town, an item
sometimes greater than the entire freightage from the nearest seaport to
Liverpool.

The season for export lasts from September until the middle of January,
during which time brokers are visiting the smaller markets in order to
buy it on commission. It is then shipped by rail or by river to the
nearest general market, where it is sold to the foreign buyers and
domestic manufacturers.

_New Orleans_, the metropolis of the South, has usually the heaviest
export of cotton, amounting to about one billion pounds each year. Much
of this is received by water from the various river-ports. The city is
not only a river-port, but an important seaport as well, controlling a
large part of the foreign commerce of the Gulf. Several trunk lines of
railway enter the city, which is a receiving and distributing depot for
both Atlantic and Pacific freights. A considerable part of the former
are s